Bressler Risk Blog

“Jones Day Disqualified as Bankruptcy Counsel to R.T. Vanderbilt Unit Before Asbestos Trial” —

• “A bankruptcy judge disqualified law firm Jones Day from representing an R.T. Vanderbilt Holding unit in its attempt to use chapter 11 to resolve asbestos-related liabilities at its nonbankrupt parent company.”
• “Judge Wendy Kinsella of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Syracuse, N.Y., ruled that Jones Day can’t act as bankruptcy counsel to former talc-mining company Vanderbilt Minerals due to the firm’s historical representation of R.T. Vanderbilt. ‘Approving the retention would compromise the integrity of the bankruptcy process in this very case, and the court is not willing to do that,’ Kinsella said.”
• “The judge said she understood her ruling was ‘a bomb that just dropped’ ahead of a trial on a proposed settlement between the subsidiary and its parent regarding their liabilities for more than 1,400 asbestos-related lawsuits stemming from past talc production.”
• “Vanderbilt Minerals filed for bankruptcy in February seeking a settlement that would shield its parent from existing and future talc-related asbestos claims in return for certain assets and the forgiveness of intercompany debt.”
• “A committee representing asbestos claimants has challenged the proposed deal, calling it an end run around the Supreme Court’s prohibition on releases for creditors’ claims against third parties. The justices in a 2024 ruling against Purdue Pharma held that such nonconsensual releases are beyond bankruptcy court’s power to grant.”
• “The committee sought to dismiss the bankruptcy case as a bad-faith litigation tactic and asked for Jones Day to be disqualified as bankruptcy counsel to Vanderbilt Minerals due to the firm’s many years representing the parent company.”
• “Vanderbilt Minerals has argued in court filings that any claims against its parent belong to its own bankruptcy estate, not to individual creditors. It also said Jones Day faced no conflict of interest because its representation of R.T. Vanderbilt concluded in September.”
• “Other corporate defendants that have tried to use bankruptcy to resolve tort liabilities have faced similar challenges to their choice of counsel due to alleged conflicts. Judges presiding over cases filed by Johnson & Johnson and 3M, however, allowed their chosen lawyers to be retained. Both those cases were subsequently dismissed.”

“Hicks Thomas DQ’d Over Aide’s Past Work For Other Side” —

• “Siding with two lower courts, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday held that Hicks Thomas LLP must be disqualified from a long-running suit over a hospital project because of a firm legal assistant’s past work for the other side of the case.”
• “The court said Lone Star State precedent is clear, ‘If a nonlawyer worked on the other side of a matter in a prior employment, there is a conclusive presumption that confidences were obtained from the prior representation and a rebuttable presumption that those confidences were shared with the new employer.'”
• “The justices said that the only way to rebut the ‘shared confidences presumption’ under ‘Turner’s rule’ is to show that preventative measures were taken by the firm to guard against any disclosure by the nonlawyer employee of information gained while working on matters for a prior employer and that Hicks Thomas had failed in that regard. Turner’s rule refers to a 2017 decision by the court in In re Turner, a case involving a nonlawyer who worked on one side of a matter and then switched law firm employers and worked on the opposite side of the case.”
• “Prior to joining Hicks Thomas, the legal assistant had worked for Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC under a lawyer who previously represented Apex Katy Physicians LLC and its managing member Pankaj Shah, the plaintiffs in a 2009 lawsuit against Adeel Zaidi, A.K. Chagla and Prestige Consulting for damages arising out of multiple transactions related to a hospital project.”
• “From 2009 to 2011, the legal assistant actively worked on the plaintiffs’ side of the case under a Munsch Hardt lawyer, the Friday opinion said. When the legal assistant joined Hicks Thomas in 2011, the firm had no involvement in the case.”
• “Munsch Hardt’s work in the case ended a couple of years after the legal assistant left that firm, the opinion said. After the plaintiffs won the case in the trial court, the defendants — Zaidi, Chagla and Prestige Consulting — hired attorney Robin Harrison to represent them on appeal. In 2016 the case was remanded by the court of appeals for a new trial.”
• “Harrison brought the case with him when he joined Hicks Thomas in 2016, five years after the firm hired the legal assistant who previously worked on the plaintiffs’ side of the matter while employed by Munsch Hardt, the opinion said.”
• “‘Significantly, as the defendants acknowledge, there is no evidence that Hicks Thomas or Harrison instructed her not to work on cases she had worked on in her prior employment,’ the opinion said.”
• “Between 2017 and 2022, the legal assistant performed work on the case when Harrison’s usual assistant wasn’t available, including filing some case documents in 2022 on Harrison’s behalf, which led to her name appearing in the record. The opinion noted that the plaintiffs’ counsel, Andrew Meade, realized in early 2023 that the legal assistant had previously worked on their side of the case when a Munsch Hardt lawyer was still co-counsel for the plaintiffs.”
• “Meade reportedly asked Hicks Thomas about the firm’s conflict screening procedures for nonlawyers.”
• “‘Harrison responded that the legal assistant did not recollect her prior work on the matter, had not shared any confidential information with him, and would be screened from the matter going forward,’ the justices said. ‘But the plaintiffs considered these steps too little, too late and moved to disqualify Harrison and Hicks Thomas in early March [2023].'”
• “A Harris County trial court judge granted the motion for disqualification, and in 2024, a state appellate court affirmed, leading the defendants to seek mandamus relief from the state’s high court.”
• “In finding that Harrison and Hicks Thomas must be booted from their representation of Zaidi, Chagla and Prestige Consulting, the justices said that the shared-confidences presumption cannot be overcome by denials of disclosure ‘but by prophylactic measures assuring that legal assistants do not work on matters related to their prior employment,’ adding that it has no reason to doubt Harrison’s testimony.”
  “‘Strict adherence is required,’ the justices said. ‘Accordingly, an instruction when a firm hires a nonlawyer is a best practice to guard against disclosures and conflicts. That said, if the conflict did not exist at that time, a failure to instruct may be remedied later to avoid disqualification.'”
• “In a footnote, the high court said, ‘We acknowledge that this may lead firms and their human resources departments to adopt pro forma instructions designed to merely satisfy this rule.'”
• “‘Although a perfunctory instruction may leave a less indelible imprint, the admonishment still provides valuable information and training to a new nonlawyer employee,’ the justices said. ‘We hope firms will go beyond these minimal requirements and instruct their legal staff in a manner to convey the significance of guarding against conflicts and protecting prior client confidences.'”
• “The high court rejected an argument from the defendants that Apex and Shah had waived the issue of disqualification because they did not move for opposing counsel’s ouster for about a year after the assistant’s name appeared in the e-file record as an employee for the defense-side firm.”
• Decision: here.

David Kluft asks: “Must a judge’s clerks, like Caesar’s Wife, be above suspicion?”

• “In a mass tort litigation involving a hotel fire in Puerto Rico and several phases of trial, both of the judge’s law clerks had brothers working as lawyers at firms representing plaintiffs (and one of the brothers had actually appeared in the case).”
• “This was not surprising because the case was so big that over 10% of the entire federal bar of Puerto Rico, and over half the large law firms in Puerto Rico, had appeared in it”
• “After two years of pretrial proceedings, and after the phase one trial, and six weeks into the phase two trial, some of the defendants moved to recuse the judge by arguing that the clerks’ relationship to their brothers created an appearance of bias.
• “The First Circuit affirmed denial of the motion, holding that it would not use the ‘Caesar’s Wife’ standard of ‘mere suspicion,’ which would make disqualification too easy to obtain for strategic reasons.”
• “Justice Breyer stated that the conflict here was ‘weak and remote,’ and even ‘assuming the family relationship raises a slight cloud, few knowledgeable people would expect that it would ordinarily cause most clerks to actually commit the serious ethical breach of seeking to influence a judge improperly.’ Additionally, Justice Breyer noted that the trial judge was fully capable of taking into account any potential bias by the clerks.”
• Decision: here.

“Firm Fights DQ Bid Against US Counsel In Chinese Arbitration” —

• “A Chinese law firm suing a Washington resident over unpaid arbitration bills has slammed an effort to disqualify its Seattle-based local counsel, saying that while one of its attorneys had worked at the law firm representing the woman, the attorney was entirely walled off from the case.”
• “Managing partner Zhizhou (Leo) Wang of Shanze Partners PLLC, the local counsel for arbitral award petitioner Beijing Dacheng Law Offices LLP, spoke with Bellevue, Washington, resident Yan Li’s lawyer last year in a call laying out all the arbitration issues, the Chinese law firm said in an opposition to the disqualification motion filed Monday.”
• “Wang informed Li’s lawyer at Harris Sliwoski LLP, Daniel Harris, in an Oct. 14 phone call that local attorney Emily Chen had never worked on the arbitration matter at Shanze Partners, had no access to the case file ‘and was walled off from the matter completely,’ according to the opposition.”
• “Whether Shanze Partners should be disqualified is not the real issue at stake, Beijing Dacheng said. Rather, it argued, Li’s motion seeks to delay resolution of the case and does not turn on ethics. After the Oct. 14 call, both Wang and Harris agreed the conflict was sufficiently addressed, and Harris chose not to seek relief from the court at that time, according to the brief.”
• “‘About six months passed, during which the court confirmed the arbitral award against [Yan Li],’ Beijing Dacheng alleged. ‘The court set a briefing schedule for entry of judgment. Respondent raised no issue. Then, on March 20, 2026, the very date respondent’s reply brief was due, respondent filed this motion seeking disqualification and a stay of all proceedings relating to entry of judgment.'”
• “The Chinese law firm added that Chen was merely a contractor attorney at Shanze Partners, where she worked on discrete tasks that had nothing to do with the Li arbitration matter. Shanze Partners and Li ‘parted ways’ three months before the motion to disqualify was even filed, the brief said.”
• “‘Disqualification is a drastic remedy, disfavored and subject to strict scrutiny, particularly when it is raised after significant delay,’ Beijing Dacheng argued. ‘Respondent sat on this issue for about half a year and raised it only when judgment was imminent. That delay alone warrants denial.'”
• “Li alleged in the March 20 disqualification motion that Shanze Partners should be taken off the case because Chen went to work for the American firm but didn’t disclose she had been involved in the arbitration case while working for Harris Sliwoski. While there, Li claimed, Chen was the lawyer who communicated ‘most directly and regularly’ with Li throughout the litigation over a petition to confirm a foreign arbitration award against her brought by Beijing Dacheng.”
• “Chen then ‘became affiliated’ with Shanze Partners, but didn’t disclose the affiliation to Li’s counsel at Harris Sliwoski, Li alleged. Also, Li said that based on Shanze Partners managing partner Wang’s account, Chen did not accurately disclose her involvement in the matter to Shanze Partners itself.”
• “In a March 20 declaration, Daniel Harris, Yi’s attorney, said Chen worked on the arbitration enforcement suit from the beginning and was ‘substantially’ involved in it during her time at the firm.”
• “‘Ms. Chen communicated directly and regularly with respondent and, because of language considerations, served as the primary point of contact between the firm and respondent throughout the representation,’ Harris said.”
• “He added that Chen was immediately fired by Harris Sliwoski on Oct. 2 after Harris learned about her affiliation with Shanze Partners by discovering her appearance on Shanze Partners’ website.”

“Your Client Is Talking to ChatGPT About Their Case. After ‘Heppner,’ That’s a Discovery Problem.” —

• “You have a client right now who is typing their case details into ChatGPT. A personal injury client describing their injuries and uploading medical records. An employment client recounting what HR said in the termination meeting. Both recapping what you told them on the phone last week. They think it is private. It is not. And after United States v. Heppner, opposing counsel has a federal court opinion telling them how to use that against your client.”
• “Most of the commentary on this ruling has come from Big Law defense shops advising corporate clients on internal AI policies. That tracks. But the real exposure lands on the plaintiff’s side. Your clients are the ones awake at 2 a.m., anxious, asking a chatbot what their case is worth. Defense attorneys are not losing sleep over Heppner. They are sharpening discovery requests.”
• “On Feb. 10, Judge Jed Rakoff ruled in the Southern District of New York that 31 documents a criminal defendant created using a consumer version of Claude were not privileged. The defendant had fed information from his attorneys into the chatbot, generated defense strategy reports, and later shared them with counsel. The court held the materials failed on at least two, and likely all three, elements of privilege: an AI tool is not an attorney, the consumer platform’s privacy policy negated any expectation of confidentiality, and the defendant acted without counsel’s direction.”
• “Rakoff did leave one door open. If counsel had directed the client to use the AI tool, the court suggested it might function like a third-party expert working under the attorney’s supervision. That question remains unanswered.”
• “Here is where it gets dangerous for plaintiff firms specifically. Heppner did not just create new documents with AI. He fed privileged attorney communications into the platform. Information his lawyers gave him went into Claude as prompts. Judge Rakoff’s opinion suggests this may have waived privilege over the original attorney-client communications, not just the AI outputs.”
• “Think about what that looks like in your practice. Your client takes your case evaluation, your strategy notes, your assessment of liability, and types it into ChatGPT to ‘understand it better.’ Under Heppner’s reasoning, the defense can argue the privilege over your advice just evaporated. That is not a hypothetical edge case. That is a Tuesday.”
• “The discovery angle cuts both ways, and plaintiff attorneys should be thinking offensively here. Corporate defendants and their employees are using AI tools to summarize internal investigations, evaluate liability exposure, and draft talking points. If those conversations happened on consumer platforms without counsel’s direction, the same Heppner logic could make them discoverable. Plaintiff firms fight against well-resourced corporate legal teams every day. This is a new tool in the belt.”
• “What to Do About It. Update your engagement letters. Add explicit language that anything a client types into a consumer AI platform about their case may be discoverable. This belongs right next to your social media warning.”
• “Have the conversation at intake. Ask directly: are you using ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI tool to research your case or your injuries? Most clients will not volunteer this. You need to ask and you need to explain why it matters.”
• “Document attorney direction. If you want a client using AI for case preparation, put your instructions in writing. Specify the tool, specify the purpose. Heppner drew a bright line between client-initiated and attorney-directed use. Stay on the right side of it.”
• “Expect AI-targeted discovery. Heppner was a criminal privilege ruling, but the weight of legal commentary says the reasoning extends to civil discovery. Defense counsel reads the same case law you do. Requests for production targeting AI usage are coming.”
• “Heppner applied old privilege principles to new technology. The conversation you need to be having with every new client is simple: if you are using AI to think about your case, tell me now, and stop putting case details into consumer chatbots. That one conversation could save the case.”

“Silent Ransom Group leaked another big law firm: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe” —

• “Jones Day wasn’t the only big law firm to recently fall prey to threat actors variously known as Silent Ransom Group, Luna Moth, Chatty Spider, or UNC3753. DataBreaches will refer to them as the Silent Ransom Group (‘SRG’).*”
• “In January, SRG gained access to the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (‘Orrick’). In terms of gross revenue, Orrick is not as large as Jones Day. Still, it has over 25 offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and its gross revenue exceeded $1.5 billion in 2025.”
• “Orrick’s name may sound familiar because in March 2023, it was the victim of a data breach that affected 461,000 people. A consolidated class-action lawsuit was settled in 2024, with Orrick not making any admission of guilt but agreeing to create an $8M non-reversionary fund as part of the settlement.”
• “Having dealt with the costly 2023 breach, would they be eager to avoid another class action by paying SRG in the hope that the breach never becomes widely known? Or would they decide not to pay at all and weather any storm?”
• “In communications with SRG, DataBreaches asked several questions, one of which was, ‘Did the fact that Orrick had settled that class-action for $8M have any effect on you targeting them? Did you think that a big firm that has just made a big settlement would be more likely to pay to avoid a second scandal or big lawsuit?’ They replied:”
  • “As We can see, this organization is not learning from its mistakes. Typically, when dealing with firms from the top 100 law firms, they all, without exception, recognize the seriousness of the situation and make the only correct decision.”
  • “They offered $1,000,000 to resolve this matter, but that was far less than the amount requested, and We decided to publish their details. This was the first top-100 law firm to offer such a meager sum.”
• “SRG informed DataBreaches that it first gained access to Orrick on or about January 20, 2026, and remained in its network for about a week. The attack did not involve any malware, as SRG never deploys malware.”
• “On February 6, 2026, a representative from Orrick appeared in chat and negotiations began. SRG shared the chat logs with DataBreaches, but only after negotiations had failed.”
• “From statements made in the chat by both parties, it seems that SRG contacted employees and Orrick’s clients at times. The negotiations appeared calm on both sides, with Orrick’s representative saying at one point:”
  • “I can tell you are experienced in this subject matter, which means you must also know thet [sic] lawsuits happen and information becomes public no matter what the outcome is here. It does not mean we’re unwilling to find an agreement, but we want to speak honestly about what a deal does and does not accomplish. I hope that is OK with you. We do not agree that [redacted] million is a reasonable expectation for purchasing the word of a stranger. It does not ease any of the other costs we will face from this. If you have a different number in mind that is more realistic, we are happy to review it and begin a productive dialogue.”
• “SRG responded by reviewing some facts and listing the names of some of the clients whose private information was now in SRG’s hands. Orrick did not come back with what SRG would consider commensurate with the scope and volume of the data involved. On February 18, Orrick offered $225,000.00 and subsequently flat-out told SRG that while they were open to making a deal with SRG, ‘there is no 7 figure deal to be had here.'”
• “On February 23, SRG added Orrick to its leak site and leaked all of the data. Orrick’s negotiator noted the development and offered SRG a final $400,000.00 offer if the post was removed immediately. It was removed for a while, but SRG rejected Orrick’s subsequent $1M final offer and re-leaked it all.”
• “Some might think that any hack-and-leak gang would be happy to get $1M and would take the money and run. But what SRG did is similar to what DataBreaches has seen the Daixin Group and others do in other incidents: they refuse an offer that seems way too low so that future victims will learn the group will leak rather than accept an offer they do not consider reasonable.”
• “DataBreaches’ inspection of the data tranche identified many files that appeared to be confidential. DataBreaches will not focus on the more confidential information, but will provide a sense of how little file security there was for some files. In one of several index files in the leak, 77 filenames included ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ in their names. All of those files were in plaintext with no password protection. Some of them contained confidential files relating to litigation. Some contained confidential and sensitive employee information.”
• “As part of its settlement in 2024 IN RE: ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE, LLP DATA BREACH LITIGATION, Orrick also agreed to improve its security:”
  • “As further consideration to the Settlement Class, Orrick has agreed to make numerous business practices changes relating to data security. Orrick has also confirmed that, as a direct result of Plaintiffs’ filing of the Action, Orrick has already implemented several improvements to its data security. Ex. 1, §8.1. These enhancements include improving its detection and response tools, enhancing its continuous vulnerability scanning at both the network and application levels, deploying additional endpoint detection and response software, and with the help of an industry leading cybersecurity vendor, performing additional 24/7 network managed detection and response.”
• “As the FBI noted in its private industry notification last year, law firms are frequent and lucrative targets due to the sensitivity of the information they store, and SRG, in particular, has been targeting them since 2023. Jones Day and Orrick are not the only law firms SRG has hit — and leaked — recently. DataBreaches may have more on this in the near future.”

“Judges Overseeing Landmark Oil Cases Have Financial Stakes in Oil Companies” —

• “A dozen federal judges have presided over some of the most consequential environmental lawsuits in Louisiana’s history despite having investments in or business connections to the petrochemical companies being sued, an investigation by Floodlight, WWNO/WRKF, and Type Investigations has found.”
• “Their ties took various forms: holding stock or corporate bonds while presiding over the cases, having previously worked as attorneys for the oil companies, receiving large sums of money from investments in the companies prior to hearing the cases, leasing mineral rights to defendants, or having a spouse who was a partner at a law firm defending the oil companies.”
• “But even when they appear to have direct conflicts of interest, almost none of those judges broke the ethical rules governing the judiciary.”
• “‘To the extent they’re following the rules, they can’t really be faulted,’ said Charles Geyh, a professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and an expert in judicial disqualification. ‘But from a systemic standpoint, do you really want judges to be drawn from a pool of people who have a stake in the industry?'”
• “Examples include:”
  • “Judge Carl Barbier of the US Eastern District Court of Louisiana held over $100,000 of corporate bonds in five oil companies while presiding over four different cases in which one or more of those companies was a defendant.”
  • “Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown, of the same court, reported that she or her husband traded tens of thousands of dollars of Exxon and Chevron stock while she presided over a case in which both companies were being sued.”
  • “Judge Jerry Smith of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of oil companies in one of the cases after receiving over $100,000 in mineral royalties since 2013, when the litigation first arrived in federal court. “
• “Judges must be impartial in their rulings and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Yet, in practice, that standard is poorly enforced. The judiciary itself decides in most cases what constitutes a conflict, and its current guidelines state that judges may even receive payments from defendants while a case is ongoing—so long as the judge’s ruling will not impact the amount they get paid.”
• “In Louisiana, where many judges profit from petrochemical investments, the question of whether the courts can be trusted to fairly judge the oil industry has enormous stakes.”
• “An investigation by Floodlight, WWNO/WRKF, and Type Investigations found that 12 of the 46 federal judges who have already made rulings in the coastal damage lawsuits had investments in or business connections to petrochemical companies that were defendants in the cases.”
• “Since 2013, nine of these judges have collected nearly $1 million in income from their investments in the defendants, according to an analysis of their financial disclosures. That income was gained during the period while the cases have been litigated in federal courts, though not exclusively while the cases were on each of the judges’ dockets.”
• “It’s difficult to determine if and how financial ties influenced judicial decisions—and many of these judges, like Barbier, actually ruled against the oil companies. But even the appearance of impropriety can undermine trust in the rule of law.”
• “‘It’s only natural for the public to be increasingly suspicious about whether those judges are a little too friendly with the industry to be impartial arbiters,’ said Geyh.”
• “Even beyond the direct ties to the defendants, judges’ investments in the fossil fuel industry more broadly could raise eyebrows. The outcome of these coastal damage cases could impact the industry at large, with the potential to establish a road map for anyone seeking to hold oil companies accountable for environmental destruction.”

“Judicial Ethics Opinion 25-160” —

• “Digest: A judge’s knowledge of an attorney’s or law firm’s contributions to the judge’s prior campaign for election to non-judicial office does not necessarily require disclosure or disqualification in all instances involving that attorney or law firm, but the judge should consider all relevant factors in reaching a conclusion about potential recusal.”
• “Rules: 22 NYCRR 100.2; 100.2(A); 100.2(B); 100.3(E)(1); 100.5(A)(1)(h); 100.5(A)(2); 100.5(A)(5); Opinions 23-41; 10-135; 08-40; 04-106; 02-06.”
• “Opinion: A new judge, who had previously campaigned for election to a non-judicial public office within the past year, asks about his/her ethical obligations regarding attorneys that appear in front of him/her who either donated, or whose law firms donated, to the judge’s prior non-judicial campaign. Since the prior campaign was for a non-judicial position, the judge, as a candidate, knew who contributed to the campaign and often personally solicited contributions from donors.”
• “A judge must always avoid even the appearance of impropriety (see 22 NYCRR 100.2) and must always act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the judiciary’s integrity and impartiality (see 22 NYCRR 100.2[A]). In particular, a judge must not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial decision-making or judgment (see 22 NYCRR 100.2[B]). Further, a judge is disqualified in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality ‘might reasonably be questioned’ (22 NYCRR 100.3[E][1]).”
• “We have recognized, in other contexts, that a ‘candidate for non-judicial office is not subject to the same exacting standards’ as a judicial candidate (Opinion 08-40). For example, a judicial candidate may contribute to their own campaign as permitted under the Election Law (see 22 NYCRR 100.5[A][2]), but must not otherwise personally solicit or accept campaign contributions from any source (see 22 NYCRR 100.5[A][1][h]; 100.5[A][2]). Instead, a judge who wishes to accept campaign contributions from others must form a committee of responsible persons to ‘solicit and accept reasonable campaign contributions and support’ on the candidate’s behalf (22 NYCRR 100.5[A][5]). Additionally, we have advised that the judicial candidate should be shielded from knowing the identities of contributors and the amounts contributed (see Opinions 10-135; 02-06).”
• “Nonetheless, we have advised that in situations where a judge inadvertently learns of an attorney’s contribution to his/her judicial campaign, that fact, standing alone, does not mandate the judge’s disqualification. ‘In and of itself, the judge’s knowledge of a contribution, does not automatically give rise to an inference of partiality’ (Opinion 04-106; see also Opinions 23-41; 10-135).”
• “After considering these or other appropriate factors, ‘if the judge is confident he/she can be fair and impartial, no disqualification is required. If, on the other hand, in his/her discretion, and having considered all relevant factors, the judge concludes that the specific circumstances might give rise to a publicly perceived appearance of partiality,’ the judge should ‘disclose and recuse, subject to remittal’ (Opinion 04-106).”

“Kennedy Center Lawyer Accused of Conflict of Interest in Booking His Band” —

• “A high-powered lawyer named Elliot Berke, who serves as the general counsel at the Kennedy Center, has been accused of attempting to book his own dad rock cover band, The DePlorables, for a performance at the center’s Speakeasy lounge. However, the Kennedy Center staff reportedly cited concerns about a potential conflict of interest and the band’s lack of professionalism, leading to the booking being denied. There are conflicting reports about whether Berke was actually invited to play but declined.”
• “This incident is part of a larger narrative around the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the Kennedy Center, including installing allies in key positions and plans to rename the building. The attempted booking of The DePlorables and another band, Yes, showcases the potential influence and conflicts of interest that can arise when personal interests collide with institutional roles.”
• “Berke, the Kennedy Center’s general counsel, allegedly tried to book his band The DePlorables, which he describes as the ‘worst band you’ve ever heard,’ for a performance at the center’s Speakeasy lounge. However, the Kennedy Center staff reportedly denied the booking due to concerns about a potential conflict of interest and the band’s lack of professionalism. There are conflicting reports about whether Berke was actually invited to play but declined.”
• “The alleged incident occurred in April 2026.”

More on AI use and privilege from David Kluft: “Can a pro se party’s AI use be protected by the work product doctrine?” —

• “In a CO employment dispute, the parties got into a discovery dispute over the use of AI. The defendant wanted the pro se plaintiff to reveal what kind of AI he was using to review confidential material. The plaintiff claimed this information was protected by the work product doctrine.”
• “The Court distinguished U.S. v Heppner (SDNY), in which a represented criminal defendant used AI on his own and not at the behest of counsel, and therefore the work product protection did not apply to his chatlogs.”
• “By contrast, the Court found that in this case, there was no counsel on whose behest AI would be used so there was no separation between client and counsel, and in addition the civil rules afforded broader work product protection to parties than the criminal rules.”
• “Therefore, ‘some’ work product protection did extend to the pro se party’s use of an AI platform. However, the mere identity of the AI platform being used is not work product because it does not reveal the party’s mental impressions, case strategy and legal resource allocation.”
• “The Court issued a protective order restricting the use of AI to platforms that did not disclose confidential information to third parties and that allowed information to be deleted.”
• Decision: here.

“Washington court blocks insurer from using assigned malpractice claims against defense counsel” —

• “A Washington appeals court just told liability insurers they cannot sue their own retained defense counsel using malpractice claims assigned from their insured.”
• “The April 6 decision from the Washington Court of Appeals draws a firm line around a recovery strategy that some insurers have turned to when defense counsel’s alleged negligence drives up the cost of a claim. The ruling will likely prompt liability insurers operating in Washington to rethink how they manage risk when the lawyers they hire to defend their policyholders perform poorly.”
• “The dispute traces back to a personal injury at Vertical World, an indoor climbing gym. Michael Vandivere fell and was injured, allegedly because of a defective auto belay device manufactured by C3 Manufacturing LLC. Vandivere sued, and C3 turned to its primary liability insurer, Great American E & S Insurance Company, for a defense. Great American agreed to defend C3 but did so under a full reservation of rights – meaning it preserved the option to later deny coverage depending on how the facts developed.”
• “Great American retained attorney J. Scott Wood to handle C3’s defense. Wood initially practiced at Foley & Mansfield PLLP but moved to Sinars Slowikowski Tomasaka LLC in early 2022, and C3 retained Sinars as its new defense firm. At Sinars, Wood worked with attorney Christopher Furman on the Vandivere lawsuit.”
• “That is where things went sideways. Between April 2022 and April 2023, Furman visited two Vertical World gym locations – including the one where Vandivere was hurt – on what the complaint described as dozens of occasions. Neither Furman nor Wood updated C3’s discovery responses to disclose those visits, even though discovery obligations required it.”
• “Meanwhile, C3’s excess umbrella carrier, Houston Casualty Company, notified C3 that it was rescinding its $4 million policy, alleging that C3 had made material misrepresentations on its insurance application. Wood, who had already disclosed the existence of the Houston Casualty coverage to Vandivere, did not update C3’s discovery responses to reflect the rescission.”
• “Then came a conflict of interest. In April 2023, Wood left Sinars and joined Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP – the same firm that was representing Houston Casualty in its coverage dispute against C3. For about two weeks, Wood continued to represent C3 while his new firm simultaneously represented Houston Casualty on the opposing side. When the conflict was disclosed in May 2023, Wood and Gordon Rees withdrew from representing C3, leaving Great American scrambling to find new defense counsel just weeks before trial.”
• “New counsel quickly disclosed what prior counsel had not. The parties learned about Houston Casualty’s attempted policy rescission, and Vertical World informed Vandivere that Furman had visited its facilities more than two dozen times – all without disclosure. Vandivere moved for sanctions, and the trial court obliged, awarding monetary penalties and signaling that it would instruct the jury to draw a negative inference from C3’s discovery failures. Vandivere then took the position that the misconduct effectively obligated Great American to cover any judgment in full, regardless of its policy limit.”
• “Facing that pressure, Great American settled the case for $5 million – well above its $1 million primary policy limit – in addition to court-ordered sanctions against C3 and Sinars. As part of the settlement arrangement with C3, the insured assigned all of its legal malpractice and related claims against the defense lawyers and their firms to Great American.”
• “Great American then sued the defense attorneys and firms, asserting malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty both on its own behalf and as the holder of C3’s assigned claims. The superior court dismissed Great American’s direct claims but allowed the assigned claims to proceed.”
• “The Court of Appeals reversed on the assigned claims. The core of the ruling is that Washington public policy does not permit an insured to hand over its legal malpractice claims against defense counsel to the liability insurer that retained that counsel, at least not where there is a potential conflict between insurer and insured. A reservation of rights defense, the court reasoned, inherently creates that potential for conflict.”

“When should counsels disclose judges’ conflicts? Responsibilities addressed in new ABA ethics opinion” —

• “If a lawyer knows or should know information in a court proceeding that would likely warrant a judicial disqualification, they have an obligation to disclose it, even if the judge doesn’t, according to an ethics opinion released Wednesday by the ABA.”
• “Caselaw holds that lawyers have an overarching duty of candor to the courts, according to Formal Opinion 522, published April 8 by the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.”
• “‘Judges are expected to raise recusal questions themselves,’ according to the opinion, citing Rule 2.11 of the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct.”
• “However, if the judge fails to do so, the obligation extends to attorneys under Model Rule 8.4(d) of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits attorneys from engaging in conduct ‘prejudicial to the administration of justice.'”
• “However, an attorney’s obligations to disclose information that might require a judge to recuse themselves is tempered by the attorney’s duty of confidentiality under Model Rule 1.6, which prohibits revealing client information without their informed consent.”
• “The formal opinion lists four illustrations, which focus on prior employment connections, campaign contributions, a spouse’s law firm involvement and a counsel’s business relationship with a judge’s family member.”
• Full opinion: here.

“Outside Counsel Guidelines: Power, Ideology, And The Evolution Of The Corporate Bar” —

• “Outside Counsel Guidelines (‘OCGs’), terms of the lawyer–client relationship imposed by corporations, are a significant development in the practice of law by large corporate law firms (‘BigLaw’). Among the most controversial OCGs are those that expand on law firms’ fiduciary obligations, thereby restricting their future clientele. The organized bar maintains that rules of professional conduct should restrict lawyers’ acquiescence to these OCGs because they limit clients’ access to legal services and undermine lawyers’ independence without advancing corporate clients’ legitimate interests.”
• “This Article shows why the bar’s effort has (very recently) deservedly failed: corporate clients have a legitimate interest in demanding greater loyalty than the rules provide as well as in expanding on other fiduciary protections, and the bar’s avowed concerns about clients’ choice of counsel and lawyers’ autonomy are not significantly implicated in this context.”
• “At the same time, the Article shows that the bar has other good cause for concern. It argues that by treating BigLaw firms as service providers rather than trusted professionals, OCGs contribute to corporate lawyers’ loss of influence and standing as wise counselors and to the corresponding decline of their traditional commitment to promoting the public good through their legal work. This analysis contradicts the conventional understanding of how corporate law practice is evolving. The traditional pendulum account states that power and standing swing internally within the corporate hemisphere, historically from general counsel to BigLaw and now back to in-house counsel. Our revisionist account shows that power has shifted from the corporate bar to corporate clients.”
• “The account we develop explains for the first time seemingly contradictory contemporary practice realities in the corporate hemisphere of the legal profession that others have struggled to understand. If BigLaw firms have lost power, how have they remained so profitable? And if they have not lost power, why have many firms capitulated to the Trump Administration?”
• “We show that in response to their loss of power in the twenty-first century, BigLaw firms have restructured. This restructuring has successfully mitigated BigLaw’s loss of power and allowed the firms to remain profitable. But law firms’ restructuring further weakened their commitment to practicing corporate law as a public calling and promoting the public spirit of the law and the rule of law. This helps explain why, at the start of the second Trump Administration, highly profitable law firms declined to oppose Executive Orders targeting the legal profession.”
• Full paper: here.

“Law firm Jones Day says hackers accessed client files” —

• “Jones Day, a leading U.S. law firm, said on Monday that it suffered a data breach after hackers posted client materials online.”
• “Jones Day, which represented President ​Donald Trump in his 2016 and 2020 election campaigns, ‘experienced a cyber ‘phishing’ incident in which ‌an unauthorized third party accessed a limited number of dated files for 10 clients,’ a firm spokesperson said in a statement.”
• “The hackers claimed to have targeted Greg Castanias, who leads the Jones Day ​team handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a screenshot they posted of purported negotiations between them and two members of the firm’s information security and technology staff.”
• “The Silent Ransom Group has been targeting law firms since 2023 ‘likely due to the highly sensitive ‌nature ⁠of legal industry data,’ the FBI said in a notice it circulated last year.”
• ‘Jones Day, with 2,400 lawyers, was founded in Ohio and is known for defending large corporations. The firm represented Trump in his first two presidential campaigns as the Republican nominee, and several of its attorneys landed senior ​positions at the White House ​and Justice Department during ⁠Trump’s first and second terms.”
• “Jones Day said in 2021 that it was among companies affected by the hack of a file-transfer program by a group ​known as Clop. Law firms, which frequently possess confidential client data relating to ​corporate deals ⁠and litigation, have been increasingly targeted by hackers and other cybercriminals.”

“Arizona Law Firm Severs Back Office for $125 Million Investment” —

• “Rafi Law Group is separating back-office services from its legal operation to receive $125 million from an outside investor, the personal injury firm announced Monday.”
• “Rafi’s move to create a management services organization, which separates functions such as accounting and marketing from legal offerings, is a creative approach by firms to gain outside investment while bypassing state requirements that lawyers own firms. After catching on in physician-owned medical practices, the strategy is gaining traction in the legal industry though remains rare.”
• “‘MSOs keep that separation,’ Rafi said. ‘Attorneys maintain their independence so that they can make those decisions that are best for the clients.'”
• “Rimon PC [California] in 2019 became one of the first law firms to sell its back office functions, now known as Briefly, to private equity firm AlpineX. McDermott Will & Schulte said in November it is in preliminary discussions about selling a stake in its law firm to outside investors, and Quinn Emanuel founder John Quinn said in an interview last month that he envisions MSOs becoming more common.”
• “Some MSOs are entities spun off from law firms so that outside investors can take direct stakes, while others are created to offer services directly to firms. Texas-based Certum Group, which specializes in litigation finance and related insurance offerings, acquired an MSO in October targeting mass-tort firms and has already partnered with several of them.”
• “Mass tort and personal injury firms have been described ‘ground zero’ for MSOs.”
• “MSOs offer a different route to outside capital than Arizona’s alternative business structures. Though the firm is based in the state, Rafi said the MSO better suited the firm’s needs since there are guardrails that prevent the intertwining of outside capital into the law firm.”
• “Alternative structures have caught the attention of legislators. California enacted a law in January that blocks alternative law firms from operating in the state through arrangements with local firms. Illinois introduced a similar bill in February, which also bans firms from sharing fees with firms operated by non-lawyers and also includes MSOs.”
• “Rafi said he hired attorneys from Greenberg Traurig to help navigate the MSO through ethics guidelines and state regulations. He said he’ll continue to keep a close eye on legislation.”

“The Back-Office Back Door to Nonlawyer Investment in Law Firms” —

• “Managed service organizations running the back office of many medical and dental practices have already gained prominence as private equity’s structure of choice for entering the health care sector, according to lawyers brokering these so-called MSO deals. Now, investors are eyeing similar opportunities in the legal industry.”
• “Briefly, backed with private equity capital from AlpineX, has grown by acquiring the back-office assets and personnel from distributed firms OGC, Scale and Rimon, among others, and bundling them into a single facility that now operates under the name Briefly. Federate seeks a similar trajectory.”
• “But unlike the private equity-backed Briefly, Federate co-founder T.J. Henry, a former chief legal and growth officer at Rimon, isn’t accepting private equity capital for his newly created legal MSO venture.”
• “Even though such an arrangement wouldn’t violate Rule 5.4 of the ABA’s professional conduct code, Henry said he wants to avoid any ‘adversarial relationships’ between lawyers at Federate’s firms and investors seeking to profit off the back office. Instead, Henry said he’s approaching various professionals in the legal industry, lawyers and nonlawyers alike, whose incentives are aligned with his.”
  ‘What we’ve learned in prior situations is that … investments from private equity come with complications because you’re beholden to fund timelines and the idea that you need to exit,’ Henry said.”
• “Charles Rutstein, CEO of Briefly sponsor AlpineX, rejected the notion that private equity’s business model was misaligned with law firms and said fund timelines aren’t as constricting as many think.”
• “Rutstein said Briefly is still in an initial hold period with AlpineX and it’s too early to say if or when AlpineX will sell, adding, ‘there’s no urgency’ on AlpineX’s part.”
• “‘Businesses bought by private equity sponsors grow quickly with investment from new owners,’ he said, noting that private equity has already permeated legal services through tech vendors like Intapp. ‘Private equity brings capital, talent and experience to dramatically improve experience for attorneys that we serve,’ he said.”
  Rutstein added that, in the example of Briefly, the upshot is a sophisticated back-office operation for small firms that couldn’t provide one on their own.”
• “The management and fee agreements between MSOs and the practices they serve are highly regulated so as to discourage unqualified management of clinical practices and the funneling of capital away from patient care, according to lawyers involved in MSO transactions.”
• “MSOs have become a common vehicle for private equity firms to profit from clinical practices without running afoul of regulations concerning nonphysician ownership, said Ericka Adler, health care group manager at Ohio-based midsize firm Roetzel & Andress, but they are careful not to structure the fee as a de facto fee-sharing agreement.”
• “Rutstein said Briefly and AlpineX retained legal ethics counsel to structure their agreements with firms, going to pains to refrain from interfering in the professional independence of the lawyers they serve.”
• “Briefly’s fees are structured on a per-attorney, per-month basis to decouple it from attorney professional independence, Rutstein said, adding that ‘it makes no difference for us to take a case to trial or settle it. We don’t make a dollar less in that scenario.'”
• “Briefly’s contracts provide it with the discretion to raise prices, but fee increases are ‘not tied to [firm] financials in any kind of direct way,’ but to inflation and Briefly’s own cost of services. This way, there’s no arguing that there’s fee-sharing with the law firm.”
• “Rutstein said he didn’t know whether Briefly’s service agreements stipulate the division between legal and nonlegal functions, as D’Agostini said is common in the medical field. But Rutstein said he wouldn’t have a problem signing such a contract. Rutstein said AlpineX and Briefly refrain from getting involved in the business operations of the law firms they serve, such as brokering a merger between any of the firms.”
• “While some view nonlawyer ownership of law firms as a welcome influx of capital and business acumen to a stodgy business model resistant to innovation, others see a troubling encroachment on the independence of lawyers by investors with no fiduciary duties to clients.”
• “From the elevation of nonlawyers to C-level positions to litigating cases with financial support from nonlawyer investors to Arizona and Utah’s experimentation with nonlawyer investment and ownership, there are many ways for nonlawyer professionals to control and profit from the provision of legal services.”
• “Eric Pacifici, founding partner of SMB Law Group, said the infusion of capital and business know-how offered by private equity should be welcomed by the industry.”
• Attorney Stephen Younger, a former president of the New York State Bar Association, said nonlawyer profit sharing in Arizona and Utah has failed to deliver on the promise to close the access-to-justice gap and has instead funneled capital out of the practice of law to private equity and other nonlawyer investors.”
• “There are also potential conflicts of interest if a lawyer cross-sells services of a nonlawyer partner or a nonlawyer investor pushes a trial lawyer to compromise his or her duty of care for a paycheck, Younger said.”
• ‘If you plant a (venture capital) person at the table, there’s greater risk of them saying, ‘Just settle the case’ as opposed to saying, ‘She’ll do better next year because we’ll have a trial date next year,’’ Younger said.”
• ‘The legal profession is governed by professionals,’ Younger continued. ‘They’ve gone to law school for three years. You can’t just ignore that and say we’re going to abolish licensing of lawyers. We need to have licensing to protect consumers. I’m all for tech companies, but … I don’t think we should be turning keys to the profession over to tech companies.'”

“Legal Department Infighting Breaks Out Between AI Doubters and Devotees” —

• “AI is causing infighting on legal teams, as lawyers with deep-seated distrust of the technology clash with those eager to leverage it for greater speed and efficiency. That was one of the findings of a new survey of 252 legal professionals on legal department AI use. The report, released by the legal staffing firm Paragon Legal, found that while AI tools have become fixtures in legal departments, skepticism about their reliability runs deep.
• “Data for the survey was collected in October 2025.”
• “According to the survey, 67% of legal professionals said they have had to correct AI-generated work, and only 21% said they placed ‘high trust’ in AI-generated legal work, while 42% said they had little to no trust at all.”
• “There is little appetite among those surveyed for delegating high-stakes tasks to AI. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said they would not feel comfortable submitting an AI-drafted document to a regulator or court. The findings suggest that even as legal teams integrate AI into their workflows, attorneys remain reluctant to cede final judgment to the technology because of a significant trust gap.”
• “The survey arrives as the legal industry continues to grapple with where to draw the line on AI delegation. OpenAI earlier this year moved to halt the provision of direct legal advice through its products, a signal that even the most prominent AI developers are still working through the professional and ethical boundaries of the technology in legal contexts.”
• “‘For in-house leaders, this shift signals a need for balance, not retreat. Legal departments should continue testing AI for routine, low-risk work while reinforcing the human oversight that protects quality, compliance, and reputation. The goal isn’t to eliminate human input; it’s to deploy technology in ways that make your people more effective,’ Paragon wrote in its analysis accompanying the survey data.”
• “The survey identified several factors dampening enthusiasm. When asked what would most increase their trust in AI systems, 41% of respondents pointed to mandatory human sign-off requirements, while 20% cited explainable decision-making and 17% called for built-in compliance guardrails.”
• “Notably, 15% said nothing would make them trust AI regardless of safeguards, a contingent that legal technology vendors may find difficult to win over.”
• “The top concerns of automating legal work included hallucinations and lack of accuracy, ethical concerns, liability exposure and the possibility of data breaches.”
• “Adoption is also generating friction internally. Nearly half of respondents—47%—said AI automation had sparked conflict within their legal teams, a finding that points to unresolved questions about roles, accountability and quality control as departments scale up their use of the technology.”
• “Paragon also asked respondents how AI has made their work better, and 69% responded that it improved the speed of their work, while 39% said it lowered costs and 31% reported it increased consistency.”
• “Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said their departments plan to automate new functions in 2026, with 46% saying they expected their teams’ use of AI to ‘increase moderately.’ Half of respondents said they felt pressured to appear more ‘tech forward’ by experimenting with AI, while 67% reported that they’ve already experimented with AI to write or improve internal policies.”

David Kluft asks: “Can I get an advisory ruling from the court on whether hiring a new associate will create a conflict of interest?” —

• “In a MT putative class action case, the lead plaintiff’s counsel wanted to hire a lateral partner who, while at another firm, had represented one of the defendants in the same case.”
• “Plaintiff’s counsel submitted a motion to the court seeking assurance that the hire would not create a disqualifying conflict of interest.”
• “The defendant opposed on the grounds that there was no real justiciable controversy, since nobody had been hired yet. The court agreed, nothing that the ‘the advisory opinion rule is the oldest and most consistent threat in the federal law of justiciability.’ Therefore, ‘it would not be appropriate for the Court to offer its views on potential conflicts that could arise’ from the hire.”
• “However, the court warned that the lateral partner already had access to sensitive information, that all the lawyers had obligations under Rule 1.9 (former client conflict of interest), and that the court expects ‘strict compliance’ with their ethical obligations. In other words: maybe don’t make the hire until the case is over.”
• Details: here.

“Conflict Lawsuits Against Am Law 200 Firms Emerge in Law.com Radar Roundup” —

• “A raft of lawsuits targeted Am Law 200 firms in March, with several cases filed by former clients leveling conflict claims… Law.com Radar surfaced 36 new lawsuits naming Am Law 200 firms as defendants in March, most of them alleging legal malpractice, with a smattering of other types of cases bringing some remarkable allegations. The platform also detected 18 new lawsuits filed by Big Law firms as plaintiffs, the majority of which allege unpaid legal fees.”
• “Among the conflict cases, Venable and firm partner Christopher Moran were sued in a $3.5 million complaint on March 10 in state court in Los Angeles. Plaintiffs Ryan Wert and his business Brightstar Partners Insurance Services allege that when Moran drafted business agreements for Wert and three other potential business associates related to tax and insurance services, Moran told Wert that his interests were protected and that no conflict of interest existed. The suit, brought by Dyer Law Firm, claims that, after a dispute arose among Wert and the others, Wert discovered that the others’ interests had been prioritized over his and that the contracts contained a provision that was illegal. Neither Moran nor Venable responded to requests for comment.”
• “Dickinson Wright and partner Jeffrey Kass were hit with a conflicts lawsuit brought by Empire Auto Protect, alleging that Kass simultaneously represented both Empire and CarShield, which are competing automotive repair plan companies, without Empire’s consent. The suit, filed by Axenfeld Law Group on March 25 in New Jersey federal court, claims that the law firm then used Empire’s confidential information to file a trademark infringement suit against Empire on CarShield’s behalf. Neither Dickinson Wright nor Kass responded to a request for comment.”
• “Katten Muchin Rosenman and partners Charles Harris, Tye Klooster and Louis Laski face a conflicts suit that alleges the firm’s joint tax and estate planning representation of plaintiff Susan Glikin and her former husband resulted in the improper transfer of ‘tens of millions of dollars’ in marital property to a trust that gave her ex-husband effective control. The case, brought by law firm Bruck McInerney, was filed in Illinois state court on March 13. Neither the firm nor the partners responded to a request for comment.”
• “Foley Hoag and partner Kristyn DeFilipp were sued in a case brought by Torrey Ah-Tye, who alleges that DeFilipp represented her and Meenta Inc., a lab equipment company, in defending a wage lawsuit against the company that settled. The suit claims that DeFilipp failed to inform Ah-Tye that one of Foley Hoag’s lawyers was employed by or was an officer of the company at the same time. The case, brought by Phillips, Silver, Talman, Aframe & Sinrich in Massachusetts state court on March 19, claims that as a ‘mere employee’ of Meenta, Ah-Tye should have been told that she needed independent counsel in defending the wage case. A Foley Hoag spokesperson responded to a request for comment from DeFilipp: ‘Foley Hoag has never represented this individual and believes these claims are entirely without merit.'”

“Morgan Lewis Dodges DQ in Meta Smart Glasses IP Suit” —

• “Solos primarily argues that Morgan Lewis’s prior representation of Kopin is ‘substantially related’ to this litigation and creates a conflict of interest that requires disqualification under Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.9 because Morgan Lewis owes confidentiality obligations to Solos as Solos was a business division within Kopin, Morgan Lewis’s client, before the spin-off.”
• “Morgan Lewis counters that Solos has never been its client and that, in any case, there is no substantial relationship between Morgan Lewis’s corporate work on the 2019 transactions and the current patent-infringement lawsuit.”
• “Here, Morgan Lewis’s representation of Kopin during the 2019 transactions does not require Morgan Lewis’s disqualification in this litigation under Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.9, for two reasons. First, Morgan Lewis’s counselling of Kopin did not create an attorney-client relationship between Morgan Lewis and Solos because (1) ‘[t]he assignment of a patent does not transfer an attorney client relationship,’ …  and (2) ‘courts have held that ‘representation adverse to a former client’s affiliate is proper unless there is a high degree of operational commonality and financial dependence between the affiliated entities,’’ Evolutionary Intel., Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 12-cv-00784, 2013 WL 12140485, at *14 (E.D. Tex. July 3, 2013) (citing GSI Com. Sols., Inc. v. BabyCenter, L.L.C., 618 F.3d 204, 210–11 (2d Cir. 2010)).”
• “Neither Morgan Lewis’s representation of Kopin before the spin-off of Solos—a spin-off during which the newly formed Solos was represented by separate counsel—nor Kopin’s current minority ownership interest in Solos transforms Solos into Morgan Lewis’s client for purposes of Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.9”
• “Second, even if an attorney-client relationship existed between Morgan Lewis and Solos, there is no substantial relationship between any former representation by Morgan Lewis of Solos and its current representation of Oakley, Inc., Luxottica of America, Inc., and EssilorLuxottica USA, Inc. Morgan Lewis’s work on discrete corporate-law issues during the 2019 transactions appears entirely unrelated to the issues in the instant patent-infringement dispute.”